Zelos Horizons Meteorite - who you jiving with that cosmic debris?

[skywatch]

Sometime last year, I started to look for meteorite dial watches, because I thought they were cool, featuring a little slice of cosmic debris. I am not always in love with the gray crystalline texture, but I am fascinated by the idea that it's a rock that fell onto our planet relatively recently from outer space. Omega and JLC make a few meteorite LE dials, but I wasn't ready to spend $6-10k for something that basically seemed like a novelty, to satisfy one of my quirky fetishes. Anyway, it seemed like a better feature for a casual watch, not something dressy.

Of the affordable brands that made meteorite dials, Invicta seems the most represented. The problem is, well... it's Invicta, plus the fact that the meteorite editions usually show up in 50mm+ Russian Diver or Lupah monstrosities. One other brand kept sifting up to the top in my search inquiries: Zelos. I didn't know much about them. According to their website, they are based in Singapore and started in 2014 by Elshan Tang, with their first watches getting very good response on Kickstarter. They like to play around with unusual materials, such as bronze and carbon fiber. They seem to have grown a notch bigger than a microbrand, with quite a number of good looking dive watches, and a smattering of models at my sweet spot of 40mm. Many of their models use Swiss movements by ETA or Sellita, with good specs. Their meteorite models tend to be limited editions of around 100 watches, and they tend to sell out very quickly on the Zelos website. I noticed that mlcor had one of the bronze meteorite Visionary models, and we all know he has excellent taste. I liked the look of his in the pictures.




In late March I found an excellent barely-worn stainless steel Zelos Visionary with meteorite dial, so I snarfed it up. I thought I had scratched that itch. It's a very nice simple watch with no date (a big plus), a Sellita SW200 movement, and perfect size at 40mm x 11mm thick. I did wish it had lume though. The blued hands are skeletonized and just a bit thin looking. One silly mistake on the Visionary design is a square-shaped crown. It might look cool in photos, but it's really hard to turn. In fact, I was even pondering writing Zelos to ask for a round replacement.

In the last couple weeks, I have been rather un-motivated in my creative life (which is my day-job) so with lack of inspiration I waste more time skimming through Watch Recon and playing with search terms. Up popped a new meteorite dial from Zelos, the Horizons GMT limited edition of 120, which sold out very quickly on their website. (In fact I didn't even know about the watch until seeing it pop up from two different sellers upon its release, both of whom said it was too small for their tastes.) The specs looked very good:
40mm diameter
12mm thick
ETA 2893 elaboré movement with custom gold rotor
4-hand with 24 hour GMT, superluminova C3 X1 hands and markers
sapphire front and back
60 click sapphire-coated 24 hour bezel
... and thank goodness, a round crown!

The watch arrived today and I am quite impressed with it. A few details that give it extra appeal:
- The sloped inner chapter ring with 24 hour markings has notches cut to outline each of the applied markers, giving an extra visual layer.
- The date wheel is black, and at 6, so it fits unobtrusively into the layout
- The daylight side of the rotating bezel is gray colored instead of white, so it matches very well to the meteorite dial
- The stainless steel case has a high degree of finishing, with polished beveled edges alternating with brushed tops and sides.

I do face a similar dilemma with this watch as I did with the Visionary, though. I have mixed feelings about the provided straps. There is a beautiful Horween leather strap, with quality quick-release spring bars - but that strap is brown, and I think both of these watches really look best on black. The other strap provided with the Horizons is a black rubber tropic, and it is not my favorite texture. It tends to pull on my wrist hairs, and feels a bit... ermmm... rubbery. On the Visionary I put a waterproof leather tropic, and I like how it feels. I will ponder what to do about this rubber one. Maybe I'll try the brown Horween after all.


Another little tidbit of information: elsewhere on the Zelos website, they explain that they "Use material from the Muonionalusta meteorite which is found in Sweden and landed over a million years ago." I think that's just really cool.



What else to say? Big thumbs up for Zelos!

So... pictures.

[Blanchy]

Lovely watch, I was a bit obsessed with meteorites a few years ago. I really wanted to have a meteorite inlay on my wedding band but I decided not to due to not being able to resize the ring ever

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[skywatch]

Lovely watch, I was a bit obsessed with meteorites a few years ago. I really wanted to have a meteorite inlay on my wedding band but I decided not to due to not being able to resize the ring ever

I think I'm still just a big kid when it comes to these things. Inspired by your comment, I just added this quote to the review up above:
Elsewhere on the Zelos website, they explain that they "Use material from the Muonionalusta meteorite which is found in Sweden and landed over a million years ago."

I think that's just really cool.

[mlcor]

I continue to be very impressed with my Zelos, and that looks like a great pickup. I'm totally with you regarding the square crown, it is the second hardest one I have to deal with (first place goes to the tapered and incredibly slippery crown on my ceramic Rado).

I love the strap on the Visionary, it's very comfortable and the deployant is quite nice. But the brown works perfectly with the bronze case and gold hands, I can see it wouldn't work as well with the steel version.

Congrats!

[skywatch]

I continue to be very impressed with my Zelos, and that looks like a great pickup. I'm totally with you regarding the square crown, it is the second hardest one I have to deal with (first place goes to the tapered and incredibly slippery crown on my ceramic Rado).

I love the strap on the Visionary, it's very comfortable and the deployant is quite nice. But the brown works perfectly with the bronze case and gold hands, I can see it wouldn't work as well with the steel version.

Congrats!

Indeed, I think the brown strap is a perfect match for their bronze watches, and they make a lot of those, so it's a reasonable addition. I really like brown leather, and that's a really good strap. It just doesn't quite work with the SS/black/grey color scheme. I need to convince iyonk to come out of strap retirement.

[Blanchy]

I think I'm still just a big kid when it comes to these things. Inspired by your comment, I just added this quote to the review up above:
Elsewhere on the Zelos website, they explain that they "Use material from the Muonionalusta meteorite which is found in Sweden and landed over a million years ago."

I think that's just really cool.

Ridiculously cool, another material I was looking at for a ring inlay was dinosaur bone, now that would be an impressive dial haha

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